Tony Williams is easily one of the top five most important drummers to record in the second half of the twentieth century. To deny that is to be a fool. It’s that simple.

Basically a child prodigy, Williams began recording during his teenage years with his first being Grachan Moncur III stultifying Evolution. Earning the spot on that album, Williams had already cemented the trajectory his career would follow, being associated with some of the most open minded players in the genre.

But 1963 also found Williams recording with anyone from Miles Davis to Jackie McLean. There’s a pattern here: the most well known players sought to work with this young drummer as did players poised on the edge of the avant garde. And that wouldn’t change throughout the most active time in Williams’ career.

As impressive as those early career gigs as a sideman were and still are, Williams’ first date as a leader, when he was still recording under Anthony, counted a player from Davis’ group - Herbie Hancock - but also Sam Rivers, Bobby Hutcherson and Gary Peacock. Still not yet twenty years old, these other established players must have understood Williams’ tremendous talent.

There’s not a misstep on Life Time, which would eventually become the name under which Williams’ ensembles would perform. Completely composed by the drummer – a rarity in and of itself – Williams allowed for a decent amount of improvised time, most apparent on “Memories,” which counted just the drummer, Hancock and Hutcherson.

The track begins as a percussion workout with Hutcherson trickling in every once in a while. There’s never an all encompassing groove reached, but as improvisation, the track is all that it cold have been.

But even during the album’s opening tracks – “Two Pieces of One,” split between “Red” and “Green” – it should be apparent to listeners that this is going to be a bizarre romp through the emerging free scene. The pair of tracks begins with what could be a section from either the aforementioned Moncur effort or even Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch, on which Hutcherson prominently figures.

Open space had, within the last decade prior to this recording, become an important part of the genre. It’s displayed over the album’s run time, but perhaps used most effectively during the opening numbers.

Life Time didn’t begin a movement, found a genre or change the face of jazz. But it did serve as the starting point from which an American icon sprung.